We last left off the story of my aunt, Lorene E. Hork and
three of her girlfriends and their travels from Japan, after working for the U.S.
Army for a year. Check out Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part
IV to see their earlier adventures.[1]
They left Bombay,
India on 24 October 1953 aboard the T.S.S. Jal-Jawahar. She wrote home
using the stationery from the ship, which showed an image of the ship and the
flag of the Scindia Steam Navigation Company, Limited. I learned that the flag
was blue and white with a red swastika, which was an ancient Indian symbol
unrelated to Nazi German use.[2]
The ship left Bombay, sailed across the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Aden, and then north in the Red Sea, where it would go through the Suez Canal and stop at Port Said, where they would take a train to Cairo. At least, that was the plan when they purchased their tickets.
Aboard this ship,
they played deck tennis and deck cards, both English games, and a bingo-like
game called Housey-housey. They also got in some time to spruce up their tans
as it was warm traveling on the Red Sea.
She wrote:
“This trip is so smooth, it’s hard to believe we’re really sailing. They sure feed us well. Our breakfast is at 8:30, ice cream at 11:00, lunch at 1:00, tea and cake at 4:30 and dinner at 7:30. The menus are in French usually and we usually order everything just to see what it is.”
They arrived at
Port Suez on 2 November, and instead of staying on board and going up the
canal, they got off the ship, as it would save them time and avoid Port Said,
which was “known for its roughness.”
The young men aboard the ship they were friendly with had a nice party for them on the last night.
“We played silly games like ‘Kiss the Blarney Stone,” Charades, and Consequence. Of course, there were drinks and lots of laughs so we didn’t feel the lack of sleep – the fellos were grand to us – Danny, Frank, Arthur, Ed, and Mally, all Indian except Frank.”
They had to go
through customs when they got ashore and their suitcases were thoroughly
searched. “All of our film really threw them but they finally decided we weren’t
saboteurs.”
They took a taxi across the desert into Cairo. They hired a guide named Ali-Baba to take them to the pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. We
“hired camels to take us through the deep sand. The Arabs who took care of the camels were all characters and had picked up American expressions like “I just love it,” “super-colossal,” “Lubba-hubba,” “natch,” “real George,” and “you bet.” We could have sworn they were Americans dressed incognito. My camel’s name was Yankee Doodle Dandy and was quite comfortable to ride.”
They met some Cairo boys, who were medical students, (Omar, Mac, Sherif, & Hassan) and they
“took us boating on the Nile in a huge sailboat big enough for 30 people. A radio, beer and lovely new moon made everything quite romantic. Hassan was very good-looking and now I’ve kissed an Arab and an Indian!”
Besides the pyramids and Sphinx, they shopped, visited the Cairo Museum, and the Citadel. Their next adventure would be in Greece, so they traveled by bus to Alexandria and purchased fourth-class boat tickets. That was an adventure for another story.
To be continued . . .
[1]
The letters she sent home were saved by her sisters and mother and put together
in an album, which I now hold.
[2] “Scindia
Steam Navigation Company, Ltd,” Wikipedia (https://fi.abcdef.wiki/wiki/Scindia_Steam_Navigation_Company_Ltd.).
It was originally in Finnish and I let Google translate the page for me.
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